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Corn · 07-02-2022, 01:51 AM

Name: First Mate Captain “Sikko” Kirsik

Species: Tsavari, attuned

Song: First Song, Tempratis

Age: 36 46 (1453)

Origin: He was born on Salin, not that he knows jack or diddly about it. Instead, he was raised in a nameless settlement in the Tumbay jungle, a few days walk from Peraki. Nine homes, three barns, a community building, and ample giant bug hunting grounds, all along the river.

Home: The Bigtime. A Taagane frigate the Captain commissioned about ten years ago. The figurehead is Ramay and Teneur, each with an arm around the other’s back, and the other outstretched. Ramay brandishes a fearsome blade, while Teneur’s hand is open, inviting. The berth deck is about as cozy as it gets on one of these things, with plenty of long-time occupants leaving their marks in painted cabinets and decorations hung between rafters. Colorful fabrics, little trophies, nothing too crazy, but enough to feel homey. A set of communal cabinets toward the back holds a little library that gets shuffled around when they’re at port more than briefly. On Tip’s request, some custom lidded beds are bolted around the stern, where they keep “pet” plants. Rosemary (Her name AND her species) is currently the longest-lived.

At this point she’s sailed much of the southern and central Nedakean, for both the thrill and to afford it. She tends to ferry items (and occasionally people) to places most respectable companies wouldn’t, places remote, uncharted, or dangerous... At least, that’s the idea. Adventure doesn’t pay very well on its own, so they tend to take work that will take them to it. As such, she also takes the crew places as hired hands, though they’re selective about their work. It takes a pretty good story to get their interest, and they're no pirates for gods' sake. When there’s enough of a score pooled to manage, the crew gets a vote on which of a few leads they have to something interesting, and the Captain sets them on their OWN darned 'job'.

Appearance: Much the same as any other first song Tsavari. Those features (you know the ones), dark scales (reddish? Hard to say), unassuming frill, about 5’7”. Anyone who lives on the sea and in battle so long has a collection of scars, and his are the same honey color as his eyes, gifts from the Doc.

Much as he’d love to live in dirty tank tops and shortpants, yaboi is often too busy to be out of his workwear. Your standard unfitted longsleeves tucked into waxed canvas pants tucked into his boots, and his armor, a leather vest and pteruge. He almost always carries a messenger bag on him, as well as a belt with three holsters. One for his pistol, one for his sword, one for his cards. (The main change to his look over the years is he is getting sluttier. The boots: taller, the pants: form fitting, the shirt: less closed up. Pteruge stays ON. Sometimes he has to wear the big coat to make an impression and he puffs up the frill but man... He doesn't benefit from looking professional anymore, it's time to let loose.)

Personality: His greatest desire, like that of much of the crew, is to take his adventures off of Alma, further than most dare to dream, to see things few will ever get to know. His second greatest desire is to be right more often so his smugness doesn't get ahead of him. He’s on the quieter side, but only because he needs time to overthink things. He wants what’s best for his crew after all, and sometimes his crew means The Bigtime, and sometimes that means errant loved ones of theirs, and sometimes it means those in hard times in the places they travel, and sometimes it means stray children, and sometimes.... You get the picture. Not very good for split second decisions, but his hope is that his studies will help with that. He’s troubled by the idea of fate itself, and where he fits into the first song’s 'sheets' so to speak, and all the knowledge he hasn’t acquired yet (especially that which was denied him) that could Change Things, but honestly? He’s been a little too busy worrying about everyone and everything else, to worry about himself. Been that way ever since he made first mate, and he prefers it that way.

Biography:

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SpoilerKirsik knows little about his assorted elders, as they intended. Far away (Salin, he assumes now), they studied, worked, lived together on an arcology doomed to fail. Tale as old as time, they dug too deep (whether that was literal or metaphorical, he has no idea), and whatever they found ruined the place. They fled to the city on the stem, and had him while waiting on a ship off-world. Felt pretty strongly that it was the fate their whole world had been doomed to, and they had to go be cloistered luddites somewhere else about it. Most other information they refused to give. When the adults weren’t working, they spent much of their time holed up in the community building, praying, plotting, whatever it was they did. With them often huddled away, he grew up taking care of all the younger children, so fascinatingly different from him and the grown ups, free of the weird gut feelings that were like, the Doom Of Their Time or whatever. Obviously all the secrecy and isolation and whatnot wasn’t going to track forever, and when he was 16 he decided he’d had just about enough. Made a raft and didn’t stop until he was in U Unohobud.

Things sucked pretty bad for the next year, turned out whatever language he spoke wasn’t exactly the lingua franca, and there was money and you needed it for things, and there could be so many people and noises in one place it made you sick- there was a learning curve. Some on-the-fly language lessons and odd jobs later, Kirsik accepted a job hauling cargo for a talkative captain. Then he accepted another job for them, as a guide. Then another to “just hold this sword and look like you’re gonna hit someone”, then another to, “Oh- just gimme a hand kid,” as their little party danced around town for the next month. They hunted down lost old junk, and sometimes people, tracked and beat the hell out of a kidnapper (he kept watch for that one), and he even set the captain on his shoulders so they could- honest to god- get a cat out of a tree. All the while they grilled him on why he was in town, his little collection of encyclopedias, his life before the city, did he want to stay here? What did he want out of life? Did he get sick on that raft? Did he like the work they’d done so far? Did he want to keep doing that?

The prospects were too enticing; he accepted. He initially signed on as a cabin boy, and assisted all over the ship, learning the ins and outs of how it operated. A year later, the Captain hired a teacher, he began his studies in the First Song, and the rest of his life started. Over the years he’s gotten better at, well, everything he does, but the gist has stayed the same. He works on that ship, studies his tail off, and sometimes he goes off to bust heads/track things down/snoop around/take the sickest hikes in places he couldn’t have dreamed of when he was younger, whatever seems best. At around the tenth year of his education, he started using his own wages to continue it, and when The Bigtime finally stopped being a dream, he’d proven himself well enough, and made first mate. Life is good, if exhaustively busy, and it gets easier to put the past behind him... mostly, as he now spends so much time looking forward.

Important Skills:

-18 28 years in the study of the First Song. At the moment, he has both a more than basic education in the sciences and math, and a blossoming skill in cartomancy to show for it.
-Ship Management- It’s his job description. Both the personal and material details. Everything from the accounting to the head maintenance, he's got a handle on.
-Passable swordsmanship and marksmanship- Nothing to write home about, but it’s the other part of his job description. (Slightly better at hand to hand ig Thanks Polly!)
-Chunard sign, whaddaya know

Important People:

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1489-Vistimar and Muta, 21 other First Song Tsavari, and (last he was aware) their 14 children, once everyone he ever knew. He remembers the adults as light handed and distant, and their children as his little siblings. Shitty kids, but like ones he loved and covered for all the time. Colorful, sweet, and anything else he remembers about anyone, he tries not to dwell on.

-The Crew of the Bigtime! After one of Captain’s jobs, there tends to be some quitting and rehiring, but anyone who signs up knows full well what they’re getting into, and a good amount stick around. Everyone who signs on for more than one voyage learns at least a little Sign.

-Captain Gom, a short Hullfolk Kurok in the image of a Peron’s tree frog, whose fashion sense would lead one to believe they’re a bird. All feathers and shine. They’re charismatic, handy with their swords, and everyone who’s stayed on the ship more than a few years credits them as the reason why. No finer navigator, no finer leader, no finer Cap’n. They’ve been around the block (though few know where they started), and it well shows; as well as the Doc keeps them, as spry as they still are, they’re getting pretty old for a frog.

-The Doc, a second song Fleshshaper who smokes like a chimney. She’s an Arcturan dwarf with (relatively) fine features and dark hair, about 100. Gruff, impatient, but not unkind. Once, she was noble, and trained for some holy service or another, but she left her name and titles and even that god behind, a few weeks after she met Gom and Weijun. Often found fishing off the back of the ship, or hunting for the latest addition to her rock collection on land. Shares quarters with the captain.

-Chief Gunner Xiao Weijun, in his 50s, of average build and a killer farmer’s tan. He’s tatted mostways, and wears the silly striped shirt and ragged shorts on the ship, because someone has to. His age has only emboldened his love of mischief, and is a bit of an enabler.... As long as the work is mostly done. The oldest of Gom’s friends, they ditched the same contract 30 years ago and never looked back. Was once a crack shot with his pistols, and then that wasn’t enough so he picked up rifles, and then a couple of canons, and now he has a good number under his command, which is way more than he ever expected to get of life. He’s no pro, but has made a habit of sketching out something cool from wherever they go. Went deaf around the same time the Bigtime was finished. Shares quarters with the captain.

-The Cook, Tippany “Tiptoe” Tecoma, a curly burly Alman halfling in her mid twenties. Full of sugar and spice and incredible arm strength, she’s one of the best on the ship in hand to hand, and always brings her mace when it comes time for the land party to leave. The Bigtime’s adventures took them to her family’s inn in Safira, and a few days later when they wrapped everything up and went back to the ship, she and her bags were waiting for them. When she’s not on the job, she cheats at card games and hunts for more plants to kill. (Somewhat reluctant First Mate as of '94)

-And of course, the Kid. An Alman halfling, 12, with a dusty look about him. The last job took The Bigtime to a pirate’s den in the sea of Galliel, where they found him. He hasn’t said much, but so far the crew knows his parents passed on the way there, and he don’t know much about his family outside of them. Plan at the moment is to give the kid some time to cool, and when they get to the next big port, try and get a lead on where in the world he might have some extended family. For now, he mostly sulks around the library, or the galley, or the bow. (See: Mahogany Miriam Minchao deMenthe)

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1499
-The Medic, Aureja Kemez-Iyan, a lanky Second Song Tsavari, 1460, 7'2", shifting bright pink and turquoise scales. A Fleshsinger from a Salinese arcology containing an anti-Song cult. Learned the Second and skills in sneaking fast-talking and fighting in secret, made her way to Taagan in '94. A little behind for the average ship doctor, pursuing her education now that she can do so openly. Polly's girlfriend?

-Chief Gunner Bjorn, Vennland Urkadi, 1456, 7'2", sneakyboy bashinboy. Once a raider, he was imprisoned in Amut for the crime. There he learned the noble tradition of Volleyball, and coached his team to their freedom in the prison tournament. Traveled all over Denka before ending up with the Bigtime, seeking passage back to Vennland, but ended up staying, at home more with the crew than his clan. The sport is a pretty big hit among the crew, and now they tend to take it wherever they go.

-Boarding Chief Pollandra Brite, former Knightess of Cestra. 5'9" 1458 Human, Fourth Singer, an entire mess. But! Sober at least, as of '97! Permanently banned from Cestra for being a ho, getting mad, and writing a nasty letter to the lord she pissed off. Picked her up while collecting a bounty in '89, been stuck with her ever since. Believe it or not she actually has a real job, to keep the crew in fighting shape, lead boarding operations, and help with the asskicking in general. Took Miri on as her squire in '91, following The Weremole Incident. Aureja's girlfriend?

-Esila Eser, Third Song Bard/Steppe Elf. 5'9", 1465, raised in a majority human tribe, forced to flee when a family rival became chief and threatened to purge them. Found her way to the sea, and joined the Bigtime not long after. Hasn't quite gotten her sea legs yet.

-Sarai Samak, Sea Elf, 5'11", 1451, born on the sea elf peninsula, kidnapped by pirates at a young age, raised in a life of crime, eventually escaped and joined up with the Bigtime to make a new life.

-Chef Marco, beloved understudy for Tip. He make'a da lasagna.

Inventory:
-Deck of cards for divination
-Cutlass, pistol, and a knife in the boot.
-Notebook and pen
-Ring of keys, to various doors and cabinets and chests and what have you across the ship. Also contains his translation charms. Too full.
-Sizable collection of books, essays, and pamphlets in his cabinet, to supplement his studies.
-Annotated map in the captain's quarters
-A few small keepsakes from travels past, in his cabinet.
-A collection of truly nasty tank tops and short pants. He could afford to replace them, he could get someone to repair them better than he could, but he doesn't. Doc threw em overboard once, only to find him wearing them the next day. That's what you get for putting a diviner in college.

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